


In From the Cold

by glossier_99



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe, Cold War, F/M, Lily/James - Freeform, Limes, Secret Intelligence Service | MI6, Spy Story, jily
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-04
Updated: 2017-09-12
Packaged: 2018-12-24 00:47:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 11,123
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12001419
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glossier_99/pseuds/glossier_99
Summary: Paris, 1985. 2 MI6 agents with a complicated past and a mission to stop Soviet arms dealers attempt to navigate the cobblestoned streets of the city of love while avoiding getting hurt again.





	1. Chapter 1

_ “Good evening, Ms. Evans. Did you sleep well?” _

_ “Yes, sir, thank you.” _

_ “Very good. I do hope you are comfortable. Are you ready to begin?” _

_ “Yes, sir.” _

_ “Very well. Let’s start with you explaining how the bloody hell you managed to escape from the Soviets after four months of being held captive.” _

_ “To be precise, sir, it was three months, two weeks, and five days...” _

* * *

James woke up with a start, his alarm blaring in his ear. Once again hungover (had he really gotten drunk by himself? He had to stop doing that...), He stumbled to the bathroom, and started getting ready for work. This mostly consisted of shaving his stubbled face, trying to comb his hair (with little success), and brushing his teeth (with, thankfully, more success). He groaned as the sun began rising through the small window, his head pounding. James looked at the time, and noticing he was quite late, he quickly got dressed, wearing his usual unremarkable suit, which had been designed specifically with his particular job in mind. He grabbed half a muffin, which he considered to be a fairly decent breakfast, all things considered, and headed off to work, satisfied that he would at least be presentable, if not well-groomed. 

After pulling into his usual parking space in the underground lot, James turned off the gorgeous Aston Martin he’d been able to borrow for the past few months, and put the key fob back into his briefcase. He was about to open the door when he remembered his now-daily ritual, and, opening the glove box, took out a grainy picture of him with his arm slung around the shoulders of a tall redheaded girl, who was grinning ear-to-ear at the camera. Lily. James silently promised, as he had every day for months, to find her and bring her home, no matter the cost. She wasn’t dead. That much he knew. If Lily were dead, the world wouldn’t be spinning, the seasons wouldn’t be changing, the trees wouldn’t be growing. No, Lily was out there, alive, and James was going to find her. At the thought of where she could be at the moment came to him, he involuntarily shuddered, and blocked the possibilities from his mind. James stared intently at the photo for a few seconds, before determinedly putting the photo back into the glove compartment, getting out of the car, and heading inside to get to work.

* * *

_ “I’m afraid, Ms. Evans, that we simply cannot accept the idea that you were just grabbed while taking a late night stroll. You’ve always been able to detect enemy agents coming up behind you in the field, and you have already said that you had your gun on you at the time. How was it that you not only got separated from your partner, but that you were captured so easily?” _

_ “I was foolish, sir, and careless as anything that night. We had thought we were coming home the next morning, we had gotten the hard drive from the ambassador’s office and had avoided all detection. It was suggested we go out for a drink, which was completely idiotic in itself, but my partner and I were feeling the need to celebrate. That area of St. Petersburg was supposed to be relatively safe, and our location was supposed to be secure. I let my guard down, went out for a smoke around 1 in the morning, and was so preoccupied with- well, with things, that I didn’t notice them until they had already disarmed me.” _

_ “What was it, that you were preoccupied with, Ms. Evans?” _

_ “Sir?” _

_ “You said that you were preoccupied with ‘things’ while you were smoking. It is important we know what it was you were thinking about. That is, if you remember.” _

_ “Y-Yes sir. I was thinking about… my partner. We had just, um, slept together and I had romantic... feelings toward him. I’m not proud of this, and I can assure you that I would not make the mistake again.” _

_ “Were you in a relationship with him?” _

_ “No, sir, it was not so formal as to be considered a relationship. We hardly ever acknowledged that part of our partnership.” _

_ “Very well. I see no reason why this should affect your future work, the agency has always permitted intra-agency relationships. And I suppose that suffices to explain how it was that the Soviets were able to grab you. Please, proceed with the story.” _

* * *

Security could be a bitch at this time in the mornings, which is why James had always preferred to come in late. He didn’t mind the occasional half-assed reprimand from his boss, and it was worth it not to have to stand in line for half an hour. But James had a mission, a deeply rooted reason for showing up to work on time these days, and nothing, not even a lineup, was going to stop him from his work. First came the metal detectors. James was permitted to go around those, for obvious reasons, but he had to show his ID to two burly security guards before he was permitted to do so. The worst part about that was that he knew that both Mitchell and Grant, who were always on duty at the metal detectors when he came in, knew who he was, and they still insisted on running his ID through the scanner anyway.  _ Bloody wankers, _ James thought, as Mitchell again insisted he wait to the side while he double-checked his ID, as if he didn’t recognise James from every other morning. Then came the retinal scan, which could be right awful if he was hungover, as the light that the machine shon in his eye was so bright as to cause his headache to intensify. As today was one of those days, James had to do the retinal scanner three times before he was able to keep his eyes open long enough for the machine to register his identity. 

Finally, there was the worst part of security; Kelly the receptionist. While absolutely kind and always helpful, Kelly was something of a talker, which James could usually work with, but at 6:30 in the morning, without the aid of caffeine, chatting with Kelly about her weekend plans was an absolute nightmare. James managed to dodge that one today, however, as Kelly was strangely absent from her desk in the foyer of the Covert Operations office. Noting her absence, James swiped his access card and the door to the generally shitty agent bullpen opened, the dullness of the office only offset by the odd volume of noise being emitted from agents who usually weren’t around for another hour. Completely strange, to see this many agents at work this early, these days, James was used to being at work before everyone else, and leaving far after everyone else. 

James saw the two things he needed most at the moment; coffee and answers. Coffee he immediately went for, grabbing a mug from the little corner kitchen and filling it to the brim. How he managed to walk around with a mug filled up with hot coffee without spilling any was a trick he could thank his unusual schooling for. He then went to get his answers, in the form of two of his closest co-workers and friends, Sirius Black and Remus Lupin. They were, as everyone seemed to be, chatting away in not-so-hushed tones, both with bright looks on their faces. Smiles like the ones they now wore hadn’t been seen for months (to be precise, four months, and three days). 

“Hey, mate, you heard the news? Bloody hell, what a relief, eh?” Sirius pat James on the back warmly, but Remus raised an eyebrow. 

“You have heard, right, James?” As the two men saw James’s confused expression, they looked at each other, alarmed.

“I would’ve thought they’d’ve told you the second they got her!”

“The second she came back you should’ve known! They’re saying she’s been in the UK for weeks, at a facility in Bristol.”

James couldn’t believe what he was hearing. There could only be one ‘she’ that they could be talking about, only one ‘her’ that he cared about.

“Remus, mate, no bollocks, is it true? Is she…”

“Yeah, James. It’s true. Lily’s coming home.”

With that, though he had always denied being a crier, James began to silently weep. He’d later go on to claim that it had been a very manly affair, but Sirius and Remus would always attest to there being tissues involved.

* * *

“Excuse me, ma’am, may I have a word?” James peered into the office of his boss, and one of the most fearsome people in all of the British Isles, Minerva McGonagall. Known for her strict demeanor and the legends of her past missions, she was a brilliant boss and a cracking head of MI6’s Covert Operations office. James had always had a close relationship with her, due to his parent’s involvement in the agency before their retirement. James had grown up around people like McGonagall, and had the skill to prove it. 

“Certainly, Potter, please sit. Could I offer you some tea?” That was the other thing McGonagall was known for; her impeccable manners. 

“No, thank you, Ma’am. I was just made aware that agent Evans would be returning to the Covert Ops office today, is this correct?” 

“Well, Potter, if she passes her final psych evaluations and physical today, then yes, she will be here no later than 6 PM tonight.” James abruptly stood up from his seat in the chair across from his boss.

“Why wasn't I notified the very second she was back on British soil? You know all I've been doing for weeks is trying to find her and organize an extraction team!”

“Please, do sit down Mr. Potter. I can understand your outrage, but I assure you I am not the person for you to express it to.” James sat down, slightly calmer. “I was only notified myself last night, that agent Evans had been recovered and had passed her preliminary debriefings and assessments. I was shocked to find out she had been back in Britain for a while, and I can tell you that I expressed this shock to my superiors in a timely fashion.”

“Do you know where she was? What happened, how did she get caught?”

“All I’ve been told is that she was held in an unofficial prison camp in the far north-east, and that she managed to escape after almost four months, and made it back across the Soviet border into Poland by hijacking a helicopter. From there, the agency was able to pick her up.”

“When you say unofficial prison camp, you can’t mean what I think you do, Ma’am.”

“I’m afraid so, Potter. All evidence points to her having undergone some rather unorthodox interrogation techniques. That is why I’m so surprised she has passed all of her psych examinations, many agents who manage to survive that never go back to the work that got them there, they’ve been too affected. Take care, Potter, not to let your frustration show around her when she is back. She may not be as ready as she seems.”

“I apologize, Ma’am, for my outburst. Most uncouth of me. Did you say she would be back at 6 PM?”

“Yes, Potter, I was told 6. We will have our meeting, then, but if she has been cleared, there is no reason she could not join us in the conference room then.” James stood up, needing to stretch, suddenly full of energy.

“Thank you, Ma’am. Please, keep me notified on any updates that come concerning agent Evans.”

“Very well, Potter. I do want to discuss something with you, while I have you here. If Ms. Evans does join us tonight, I have a small operation for you two, if she is up for it. It is not too demanding, nothing like crossing the iron curtain just yet, but it would be good for her to get back into the field, lest she feel like I’ve decided she can no longer do fieldwork.”

“That sounds fine, Ma’am, I appreciate you letting me know.”

Thank you, Potter, you are dismissed.” James left McGonagall’s office with the half-smile he hadn’t used in months, and went back down to his desk, where his colleagues were still gossiping about their no-longer-missing compatriot.

* * *

_ “Tell me more about your relationship with your partner, agent James Potter. How did you two meet?” _

_ “We met when we were still training. He was the golden boy, very popular, but he noticed me and sought me out. The very first thing we bonded over was coffee, of all things. We both prefer it to tea. He joked that the only way in which he wasn’t loyal to the British Crown was in his love for coffee, and I told him that I wouldn’t report him if he didn’t report me for the same. We grew close, we did everything together. He was the one who taught me how to scale a concrete wall, and I taught him how to fool a polygraph.” _

_ “You wouldn’t happen to be fooling this polygraph, would you, Ms. Evans?” _

_ “No, sir. Besides, I believe you wouldn’t need a polygraph to tell if I were lying. I’m far too exhausted to give you anything other than the truth.” _

_ “Very well, Ms. Evans. Please, continue.” _

_ “Well, James and I graduated from training with top honours, and immediately applied to the Covert Operations team in the London office. It was sheer luck that we got chosen, everyone knows that the Covert Ops office is top-notch with McGonagall in charge. James and I, we travelled the world for 3 years, gathering intel, turning assets, and when necessary, taking out foreign agents. It wasn’t always pleasant, but he certainly made it more so. I suppose it was a long time coming that we would develop romantic feelings for one another. I had known he had felt strongly about me during training, but he hadn’t mentioned anything about it since we had graduated. Nonetheless, we found ourselves getting romantically entangled despite knowing better. I never talked about it with him, I wanted to keep my professional life separate from my personal life. He tried to bring it up once, but that was the night that I was caught, and now… now I would never allow my feelings to cloud my professional judgement that way. Getting involved with him was a mistake, and though I still wish to work with him, I could not be involved with him that way again. I’ve simply seen that there are consequences for those kinds of mistakes.” _

* * *

“6 PM? Well, holy fuck. You must be right excited, mate.” Sirius Black, spy extraordinaire, laughed as the men ate their half-assed lunches in the lounge-area of the office. Or rather, Remus ate, Sirius smoked, and James drank more coffee. 

“Yeah, you could say that.” Sirius and Remus glanced at each other, unconvinced. James noticed their nonverbal question and filled in the blank.

“McGonagall basically said she had been held by the fucking Soviets and tortured for a few months, so I’m pretty fucking worried, yeah?” Remus and Sirius had gone pale. 

“Fucking shit.”

“Bloody hell, James. I mean, we all knew it was a possibility, but thinking about Lily in one of those places, it isn’t right, it doesn’t fit.”

“To be fair, though,” began Sirius, “Lily doesn’t even really belong in MI6, she’d fit in much better as a fuckin’ nurse or some shit.” James smirked despite himself. Lily had always had the utmost compassion for others, and her kindness was unmatched. He thought of her kind smile and warm laugh and was lost, until he heard Remus grumble to Sirius.

“Yeah, and you’d do better as a goddamned model, Sirius, but we can’t all have our bloody dream jobs, huh?” Sirius only chuckled, and where there would have been roaring laughter from James, there was only silence, until he suddenly asked,

“What if she gets back and she’s not… okay? You know, mentally and all. Fuck, God knows I wouldn’t be.”

“Do you remember that story about that agent who got caught in East Berlin a while back?” Asked Sirius, suddenly straight-faced. “The one where they cut off each of his limbs one at a time and sewed them on backward?”

“Oi, I couldn’t sleep for days after I heard that, thanks for bloody reminding me.”

“Cheers, mate.”

“James, don’t look so panicked. If she were seriously hurt, or, you know, fucked up from what happened, they wouldn’t have cleared her to come back to work. You know those shrinks they make everyone talk to, they’re so good at reading people they could tell what I’d had for breakfast that morning.”

“You’d probably just spilt it all over your bloody shirt, Black, don’t fucking bullshit. Seriously, James, you can trust the agency with this, they’re putting Lily’s safety first here. They wouldn’t clear her if she weren’t ready to come back, she’ll be fine, you’ll see.” James cleared his throat and snapped out of his worried paralysis. 

“Yeah, you’re right, you’re right, she’s been cleared, so she’s got to be fine.”

“Well, mate, we all know just how fine you think she is.” Sirius ribbed him, causing James to lose balance from where he was perched on the arm of  the couch. Blushing and sporting a sore bum from his fall from to the floor, James stood up and raised an eyebrow. 

“Don’t start with that, Sirius. Our… relationship is the last thing I’m thinking about right now. It’s completely unimportant.” Both of his friends laughed, wearing looks of disbelief on their faces.

“But seriously, mate, this could be your chance. Tell her how you’ve been working to find her, tell her how much you lov-omph!” James punched Sirius in the gut to shut him up. Sirius was a shit friend who never knew when to quit talking, James decided. Punching him was the only way to shut him up.

“Stop that, I’m not going to talk about it. I’ve got work to do, so I don’t want to hear it anymore.”James got up and started to walk back to his desk when Sirius yelled after him, 

“Oi, mate, ignore us, but you can’t ignore your feelings!”

“Shut the fuck up, Sirius.” At least Remus had James’s back sometimes. Remus was a true friend. James wouldn’t need to punch him. 

* * *

It was 6:45 PM when McGonagall finally gave up and called everyone to the conference room for their meeting. She had delayed it almost an hour, and she could not wait any longer, despite her wish to greet her newly-appointed agent. James had been panicking ever since 6:01 PM when the doors to the bullpen stayed closed, despite the insistence on McGonagall’s account that Lily would be back at 6:00. Every passing minute was more unbearable than the last, and so James was a bit relieved to have the meeting to distract him from Lily’s absence. 

As he sat in his usual seat, second from the left, close to the door, James decided that everything just  _ had  _ to be too good to be true. To think that Lily could walk through the door any minute, unscathed and as lovely as ever, seemed to be wrong. James felt he hadn’t atoned for what had happened, he hadn’t made amends for his mistake, the universe surely wouldn’t allow for him to get a free pass on something so important. But then, James had never really believed in things like karma. Leave that to Lily. 

He could see Sirius across the table, mouthing something to him, surely wondering where Lily was just as everyone was. McGonagall was explaining a new development with the situation in Afghanistan, but James had never been involved in Middle Eastern affairs, as he could barely speak Spanish, let alone Pashto, and forget about Arabic. James was sipping his fifth (sixth??) cup of coffee, planning on staying at the office until forcibly removed, lest he miss Lily. He tried to pay attention, McGonagall was explaining that 1985 was shaping up to be the worst year yet in the Afghan war, but James was unable to concentrate due to the clock in the corner of the room reminding him that Lily was 78 minutes and 34 seconds late. He was staring so intently at this clock that he nearly jumped when the door opened, and an all-too-familiar form stepped through, all eyes on her svelte form and trademark red hair. Lily Evans, back from the Soviets’ grasps. 

* * *

_ “Hello, Lily, I’m Dr. Marks, and I will be conducting your psychological evaluation. I’ve heard that your official debriefing went well, but I’m more concerned about how you are, as opposed to how your mission went.” _

_ “Certainly, Dr. Marks. I’m ready to begin whenever you feel is best.” _

_ “That’s great, Lily, that’s just great. Could you tell me a bit about what kind of experience you had while being held in that… er, detention facility.” _

_ “Please, Doctor, it was less of a detention facility and more of a hole in the ground. Quite frankly, it was hell, and while I know that it is your job to ensure I’m mentally fit to return to work, but I must tell you that I’ve blocked out a great majority of what happened while there, to preserve my sanity.” _

_ “We all have our own ways of coping, Ms. Evans, it seems acceptable to me that this is yours. How have you been sleeping, since you returned a week ago?”  _

* * *

Whatever James had been expecting, it wasn’t this. Dressed as professionally as ever, in her nicest heels, and looking like she’d come from the spa, Lily Evans, MI6 agent and covert operations expert re-entered her old life. Without a glance toward anyone but McGonagall, Lily strode into the room.

“I apologize, Ma’am, for my lateness. There was an urgent matter that required my attention. I will endeavour not to allow it to happen again.” She handed her boss a manila envelope, and explained, “my reclearance forms and evaluations, Ma’am.”

“Very good, thank you, Ms. Evans. You may take your seat, we were discussing Afghanistan.”

“Yes, Ma’am.”

Lily took her seat next to James, pulled her notebook out of her briefcase, and promptly began taking vigourous notes on the potential covert uses of foreign aid drops, even though she had never been to Afghanistan in her life, and was completely uninvolved in the Middle East’s role in the war. James attempted several times to make eye contact with her, but she steadfastly ignored him, and everyone else in the room. He made the mistake of leaning a little bit too close to her, and caught the scent of her perfume, the all-too-familiar scent of citrus and amber filling the space around him. After that, he was a goner. No more listening to Afghanistan ops, now all he could do was stare at the woman who had reentered his life with such ease, but was not meeting his eye.

“Finally, Potter, Evans, I have an assignment for you two, if you’re feeling ready.” James’s attention snapped back to his boss at the mention of his name. McGonagall raised her eyebrows at the redheaded woman beside him, but Lily replied smoothly,

“Yes, Ma’am, quite ready. When do we leave?” James let out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding.

“Tomorrow morning, to Paris. We have received intel from the Americans that a Soviet arms dealer has just set up shop in a suburb, and we’ve volunteered to get the information on who his connections are. We’ll meet here at 7 tomorrow morning to go over the details. I’m sure everyone would like to go home, it’s been a long day. You are all dismissed, and a good evening to you all.”

* * *

James turned to Lily, ready to embrace her, but she was gone. He saw her shining red hair swishing out of the room before anyone else could even register that they’d been dismissed. 

James stood up and rushed after her, determined to catch up to her quickly retreating form. He finally caught her as the elevator she was on was closing. He pushed the door open, and noticed that Lily looked almost upset to have had him catch up to her. 

“Lily. You’re… You’re back.”

“Hello, James. I am.” She was tense, terse, and absolutely uncomfortable. Not the Lily he knew, by a long shot. 

“Are you alright? God, I’ve missed you like hell.” James took a step closer to her, but she leaned away, pursing her lips. 

“I’m fine, thank you. I hope you’re well too.”

“Lily, really, are you okay? You’re acting really distant.” James’s worry was spiking, her distance felt tenfold. She sighed quietly and turned to look at him dead on.

“James, if we’re going to work together again, I need to make something clear. Our relationship needs to be strictly professional, and you need to get over any feelings you have for me. I won’t let emotions get in the way of me doing my job, and I suggest you do the same.” James felt the world slipping away from him, and as the elevator doors opened, he grabbed Lily’s elbow to stop her from leaving him behind. With her full attention, looking her intensely in the eye, he said,

“Lily, you have to know I still feel just as strongly about you now as I did that night. I didn’t- I wouldn’t say those things lightly. Please, tell me you understand, tell- tell me you still care.” He was desperate, frantically searching her eyes for any sign that he hadn’t lost her. She pulled her arm out of his grasp, fixed him with an intense look of her own, and replied,

“We were fools, James, to think we could survive that way. I won’t endanger missions that way again, and I ask you to do the same. I hope you can understand. Good evening.” She walked out of the elevator, leaving James standing there, staring after the woman he loved, clinging to scraps of hope that underneath the scars of her terrible experience, she could love him back the way she’d admitted to four months and four days ago.


	2. Chapter 2

Looking at the bottom of her coffee cup, Lily groaned internally. 7 AM and at the end of her second cup, she felt no more awake than she had half an hour ago. The briefing room was chilly this early in the morning, which helped to keep her awake, but Lily knew she had to look like utter shit. Unable to get any sleep last night, she had gone to a bar in her neighborhood of western London and sat by herself until closing time. The office felt strange, like she wasn’t supposed to be there, she hadn’t earned her way back to the seat at the conference room table. 

She’d been the last to get to the meeting that morning, running late even though Grant the security guard always let her through the first pass without any trouble. She had found out that her beloved car, her green Aston Martin, had been borrowed by James, and was displeased to have to take the Underground to work. McGonagall had started the meeting right as she walked in, and had been talking ever since. When she got there, James, Sirius, and Remus were already sitting at the table, McGonagall obviously had assigned Remus to run tech for the op. McGonagall wasted no time with good mornings, jumping right into the briefing.

“Evans, Potter, you will be positioned as two Londoners who have just moved to Paris for work, and will be moving into a flat across the hall from Katia Makarenko. Makarenko is a Ukrainian-born expat who lived in London most of her life, before retiring to Paris a few years ago. Your target will be her great nephew, Anton Makarenko. He has just moved to Paris from the USSR, supposedly leaving his life behind the curtain to start anew. However, both the Americans and the French have received intel that Anton is supplying arms for an underground pro-Soviet resistance group in Paris, smuggling in weapons from the Soviet government. You will need to turn Katia as an asset, get access to Anton, and find out as much as you can on how he is smuggling the weapons. Black, you’ll be their handler, but no direct communication, there are eyes everywhere. The Soviets know that NATO will be interested in what’s going on, but they’ll expect the Americans; be vigilant nonetheless. Finally, time is of the essence here. Get to Paris, get the intel, and be done with it. Your plane leaves in two hours, and this will be the last contact you have with the office. Understood?”

A chorus of ‘yes, ma’am’s rang out, and McGonagall dismissed them and left the conference room, placing an envelope on the table, which Lily could see held the keys to the flat, from the obvious bulk of the package. 

Without looking up, Lily could tell that the eyes of the three men in the room had wandered over to her. Lily was determined not to get into any sort of confrontation about all that had happened, and decided to ignore the men, picking up her briefcase and exiting just as swiftly as McGonagall before her. 

* * *

“What the fuck is going on, James?” Still staring at the door that Lily had just swept through, James was at a complete loss for words, as he had been since their conversation last night. Sirius’s question seemed to be all James had been able to ask himself after that. 

“I don’t know, mate.” He stared at his hands. “She’s not herself.” Sirius barked out a dry laugh.

“No, shit. The Lily we know would’ve come rushing into the conference room last night, hugging everyone and smiling ear to ear. The Lily who came in instead… I don’t know her, never met her before.”

“I know, Sirius, alright? I’ve noticed.” James snapping at Sirius was rare, but he didn’t know what else to do. “Sorry. I’m a bit shaken, I-” His voice caught, but he continued. “I talked to her last night, and she basically said she wanted nothing to do with me. Said I need to get over my feelings.” As if he could do such a thing. Remus spoke up, sensing James’s distress.

“James, she must have passed her psych exams, but she might not be the same. Something like what she went through could change a person for a while. Try giving it time, see if she warms up.” James nodded to Remus in thanks for the usual sane advice. He decided to just focus on the operation. McGonagall had been right when she said it was small. James had been on the forefront of the Cold War for the past year and a half, so involved he was practically scaling the Berlin Wall daily. He understood why his boss had decided to give this mission to them. Low risk, speedy, and close enough to London that if anything went awry, other agents could step in easily. In other words, McGonagall was testing Lily. James wondered how she would take it.

* * *

“May I have a word, Ma’am?” Lily was more than a little angry, but she was trying her best to reign in her emotions at this moment. She knew that McGonagall would try to feel her out when she came back to the department, but, frankly, this so-called ‘mission’ was insulting. Lily Evans had not spent four years learning how to speak 12 languages, how to effectively wield 23 kinds of weapons, and how to scale a 200 metre building using nothing but her hands just to get stuck doing work meant for children. Lily Evans had earned more than that. And she had thought she’d earned the respect of her boss, but apparently getting yourself locked up in a maximum security Soviet spy prison for a few months meant that nobody trusted you anymore. Completely unfair, in Lily’s opinion, and she had decided a few moments ago to confront someone about it. In hindsight, she should have thought it through a little more, but hindsight was always 20/20, wasn’t it?

“Certainly, Ms. Evans, please sit down. Could I offer you some tea, or are you fine with your coffee?”

“Thank you Ma’am, I’m fine for now. I wanted to discuss the mission. I’m worried that you don’t believe me truly fit to return to the field, and I wanted to assure you that I am completely recovered and ready to work.”

“What do you mean, Ms. Evans?”

“Well, this operation you have me going on is completely ridiculous, to be honest with you! I’m far overqualified for it, and-and I’m just.. Better than this. I didn’t come back to work just to be babied and treated like a fragile object!”

“Ms. Evans, I am shocked. I have known you for years, and have never seen you act this way. You know well that it is customary for agents who have been through significantly difficult events to ease their way back into their work, and you are no different. Like it or not, you have gone through a terrible experience, and while you may be eager to pretend it never happened, the rest of us can never forget for a moment.” She sighed, and softened her tone. “Lily, I’ve been… struggling these past few months, with you gone, missing. Everyone in the office has. You need to understand that we have been worried about your safety, and are going to care about how you are. Our profession is dangerous by design, but we have emotional attachments that we cannot ignore. You’re an important part of this office, and everyone has been worried something awful.” 

That wasn’t what Lily had wanted to hear at all. Her mind was swarmed with thoughts for a moment, but she shook herself out of it. There was nothing she could do, to change the mind of McGonagall, that much was clear.

“Yes Ma’am. I certainly hope that your emotional attachments do not interfere with my work.” And without waiting to be dismissed, Lily got up and left the office. 

* * *

Getting comfortable in the back of the agency car was difficult when there were three large, muscled men trying to fit in as well. Well, Remus had taken the front seat, next to the driver, so it was really just two brawny gents that Lily had to squeeze between. Still, it was a tight fit, and not a particularly welcome one at that. Lily knew she had been cold when she had met up with the three men she had once considered some of her closest friends. She felt awful, but the numbness in the back of her brain served as a constant reminder as to why it was that she needed to act this way. Never again would she allow for anyone to get hurt because of something as ridiculous as- 

“We are the world,We are the children, We are the ones who make a brighter day, So, let's start giving…” Remus was playing with the radio,and  an unfamiliar song rang out, filling the almost unbearable silence. Sirius coughed, causing Lily to jump in her seat.

“Oi, Remus, turn that shite off.” Remus turned the music down, but kept it playing, and, trying to make conversation, he asked,

“Hey Lily, did you see that bloody kid won the Wimbledon singles?” Lily thought that was quite low of Remus, using his knowledge of her love of tennis against her like that. 

“No, I hadn’t seen that.”

“And that woman you don’t like too much, Martina something, she won women's singles, but that’s happened every year, so I guess it’s no surprise.”

“Hmm.” Lily knew she was the worst when she’d begun ignoring her old best friends the night before. She really knew she was the worst when Sirius looked at her disapprovingly. He’d seen her enthuse about tennis too many times to count, and mention of the name Martina Navratilova was known to set Lily off on a rant about the specifics of advantages given to left-handed tennis players in professional tournaments. 

After that, the trip was passed in silence. Lily’s knee kept brushing up against James’s every time the car went over a bump, causing both of them to flinch. Remus flipped through radio stations, never able to settle on one, and Sirius stared out the window darkly. 

* * *

Remus handed Lily her fake passport from the envelope McGonagall had left for them, and she got out of the car in a hurry. James, on the other hand, sat for a few more moments, feeling as if he should say something, but with no idea as to what would be appropriate.

There was nothing he could say in that moment, with Lily a million miles away and with no map home. He nodded to Remus, clapped Sirius on the back, and got out of the car, feeling just as heavy as he had the entire time Lily had been gone. 

Lily continued to be uber-professional throughout their time at the airport, dismissing any and all attempts on James’s account to make conversation. It was as though she had little use for a sense of normalcy, and was instead entirely focussed on her mission. Indeed, Lily spent double the amount of time it would usually take an agent to scan their surroundings for imminent threats, and she had checked to make sure nobody was following them five times in the last two minutes alone. Beyond that, her head was stuck in the case files, going over the details of Katia Makarenko and her life. 

James sat beside her on the awful airport bench, continually failing to keep his eyes from closing. He was counting on sleeping on the plane, but for now… coffee would have to do. 

“Hey, Lily, I’m going to get some coffee. Do you want a cup?” Lily looked up, startled. 

“Um, what?” She shook her head like she hadn’t quite heard what he was asking. She looked so out of it and confused that James had to smile a bit. It was so like Lily to get lost in her thoughts when she was trying to strategize. He huffed a laugh under his breathe before repeating his question.

“Do you want some coffee?” She blinked once, twice, her eyes darted to the left, and then her shoulders relaxed.

“Uh, sure, th-thanks.” James smiled at that. Lily met his eye, lowering one eyebrow slightly, and he knew that she was thinking about his dumb way of grinning that always looked lopsided. At that moment though, he didn’t really care.

“No problem. Milk and sugar, right?”

“Could I have it without sugar? I’m not… Um, I wouldn’t like any sugar.” She buried her head back into the case file, and James looked at her oddly, before setting off to find some awful airport coffee, sans sugar. 

* * *

15 minutes later, James returned, having only burnt himself by spilling the overly-full cups of coffee onto his hands twice. Apparently coffee lids were too advanced for the shite coffee shop inside the airport. He returned to find Lily in an agitated state. Her eyes widened when she spotted him, and walked over briskly, and, oddly enough, smiled at him. 

“There you are. We’ve been called for boarding, I was worried we’d miss the flight or something. Here, let me take that coffee, thanks for getting it for me.” She pulled him in for a hug, before whispering in his ear,

“Two Russians just sat down right next to me, we may need to do some counter-detection if we see any signals that they’re KGB.” James glanced toward where Lily had been sitting and saw that an elderly man, a woman that could easily have been his daughter, and two kids had sat down and were talking rapidly in Russian. A closer look revealed the woman was nearsighted, the old man truly needed the walker he had (he most likely had some sort of bone fragility, both his left hand and right ankle were wrapped in tensor bandages), and they were both slightly overweight. All signs pointing toward them not being secret agents sent by the USSR, but rather, an immigrant woman travelling with her children and father. That was counter-detection 101, and yet Lily remained alert and vigilant, her jaw clenched and her eyes darting around for all possible escape routes. 

“Um, Lil, I think it’ll be fine, I’m not too worried.” Lily looked at him incredulously, but said nothing, instead turning and walking toward the door to get on the plane. 

* * *

Half an hour later, James and Lily were sitting in cramped economy seats at the back of the smoke-filled airplane cabin. James had brought out the Jason Bourne book he’d been reading (something about fictional spies being badass made him feel badass as a real life spy), and was ready for the plane to leave, but Lily was on-edge. Upon glancing at her weary face, James instantly remembered Lily’s fear of flying, and how she’d confessed to him once that airplane take-offs were awful for her nerves. Ever since then, James had held Lily’s hand come take-off, her squeezing tightly, him silently reassuring her as best as he could. 

As the plane started making its path down the runway, James tried to lightly take Lily’s hand, startling her. She yanked her hand away from his, looking at him furiously. 

“Did you not understand what I told you last night? Enough of that, okay?”

James could only nod, suddenly unable to meet her eye. As Lily sat, her hands clenched in fists, James knew that he would never be able to forgive himself for the mistake he had made four months ago, and that he would never let anyone close to him get hurt again. 


	3. Chapter 3

The door to the Parisian flat opened, revealing a nicely decorated, well-lit home. It was protocol for operatives to stay in regularly-furnished homes while on cases, in case anyone were to come into their apartment as a part of the mission. This flat, it seemed, was able to signify that James and Lily were supposed to be wealthy for a couple in their twenties, and had photographs hanging in nice frames all along the walls. James remembered that his cover story was that he was a photographer, while Lily was his art-buyer fiancee.

 

Lily looked nothing like an art-buyer as she sprang into action, silently checking every nook and cranny of the flat for bugs. Highly unusual, James knew that MI6 had just finished a complete sweep of the flat just before they had arrived, and had found nothing.

 

“Lily, you just heard me on the phone with the Paris team, they’ve done a complete sweep of the flat.” Lily was unimpressed with this, merely replying,

 

“You never know who could have been here last.” She sounded so grave and ominous, James decided not to argue. She finally looked satisfied with having checked the entire main room of any hidden tech, and moved into another room, continuing her search.

 

James, meanwhile, simply locked the door to the flat and went to the kitchen area to make some coffee.

* * *

 

Lily was finally sure that there were no bugs in the flat after another twenty minutes of searching, and came back into the main room with the intention of sitting down and figuring out a course of action. James joined her at the little table by the windows, passing her a mug of coffee before sitting down across from her. She’d laid out the case file on the table, and was studying it fastidiously. She met his eye and started explaining her approach.

 

“I think we should focus on gaining Katia as an asset, it makes the most sense. Its low risk and high reward, and if we can get her to confront Makarenko and feed us the information, then he won’t know that we have the intel.”

 

“Okay, that sounds fine, but how do we get her to flip? She ought to be loyal to her family, yeah?”

 

“Well, she’s not loyal to the USSR, she grew up in England. If we can show her the impact that Makarenko’s actions could have, she could easily be persuaded to do the right thing.”

 

“That sounds great, good thinking. She’s a British citizen, so it shouldn’t be too hard to convince her to be on our side. Also, she hasn’t known Anton too long, so it’ll be easy to convince her that he isn’t who he seems.” To James it sounded complete, and fairly easy to accomplish. Lily wasn’t done, however.

 

“That’s the other part, though. We need good evidence that he’s helping the Soviets, she probably won’t turn on our word alone. We need to scope out his schedule and get as much intel as we can on the weapons trading.”

 

“That seems unnecessarily risky, I doubt McGonagall would want us taking chances like that. We know he’s armed and something tells me he knows how to detect people watching him.” Lily was not happy that he was arguing with her.

 

“Part of the op is to figure out the channel through which he’s smuggling the weapons, is it not? Arms dealers never work alone, we need to know what kind of manpower he’s got, and if we can turn any of them.”

 

“Lily, Makarenko could’ve been trained by the Soviets before he came over here, the last thing McGonagall wants is for us to have to deal with that again.” Lily couldn’t have looked more insulted, and James knew he’d chosen the wrong words.

 

“What? Do you not trust me to avoid detection? Are you doubting my ability to do my job? I was cleared to come back to work, you know.” She was mad, and James knew he had said something that had struck a serious nerve.

 

“No! No, I- I trust you completely, okay? Look, we can do the intel-gathering like you want, alright? You’re right, anyway, part of the mission is figuring out his contacts on either side of the wall.” Lily calmed down at that, the fight visibly leaving her eyes.

 

“Okay, um, good then. I mean, keeping an eye on him is the only way we’ll be truly safe, after all. Good… yeah.” And with that, Lily nodded her head definitively, got up from the table, and went into the bedroom, shutting the door after her. She came out three minutes later, wearing athletic gear. She knelt down to tie her sneakers tightly, double-knotting them.

 

“I’m going to go for a run, I’ll be back by 5:30 PM.” James looked at her, startled.

 

“Three hours? That's a pretty long time, Lil, are yo-” She cut him off.

 

“I’m sure, James.”

 

“I could come with you?”

 

“I’ll be fine. See you later.” She swung the door open, and closed it soundly behind her, leaving James alone once again.

* * *

 

James paced the flat. It was 5:26, and Lily was due home any minute. He had no idea why he was so stressed, when she wasn’t even late yet. Well, that wasn’t completely true. James had some idea as to why it was he was so worried about Lily. His mind had a way of continually turning to that day, four months ago. The worst day of his life, if he was being particularly honest. He remembered the shooting pain in his chest as he woke up that morning, in that tiny bed in St. Petersburg, to find that Lily wasn’t lying next to him. How it’d taken hours to realize that Lily hadn’t just up and left- she’d been taken. All he could find of her was her half-smoked cigarette, distinctive because it was a Viceroy brand; Lily was one of the only people James knew who used that brand. It was _hers,_ like The Smiths and long-stemmed sunflowers were.

 

The sound of the key turning in the lock snapped James out of his flashback, and the tightness in his chest released as Lily strode through the door appearing completely unharmed, if slightly sweaty and tired from her run. James wanted to go up to her and hold her to his chest, but he instead decided to not be totally obvious and instead just asked her a question.

 

“How was your run?” Lily met his eye, and he noticed that she was still breathing heavily, her exercise-induced blush out in full force.

 

“It was good, thanks. Still have a long way to go, though.” James wasn’t even going to start to analyse _that_ cryptic statement. She didn’t really give him a chance to ask about it, anyway, as she began walking straight to the loo, presumably to have a shower.

 

He’d been so worried for her, so focussed on finding her all those months, he never noticed how sorry his own state had gotten. He realised that he probably had a problem when he recognised that his strongest urge, the urge suddenly overwhelming him, was to have a stiff drink.

* * *

 

James’s need for some strong alcohol only grew while waiting for Lily to be done washing up, and by the time she was out of the shower, James was already planning his method of attack. As she walked back into the room, James stood up from where he’d been sitting on the couch and turned to face his counterpart.

 

“So we don’t really have any food here, and I saw this really cool looking pub a block east, why don’t we go there for dinner?” Lily’s eyebrows shot up at the suggestion, looking unsure as to how to react, and James swore he could see the gears turning in her head. She finally decided on suspicion, and squinted at him like she was expecting a trick.

 

“That seems unnecessarily risky, like you said earlier. Besides, I’m not all that hungry.”

 

“Come on, Lil, you’ve gotta be hungry, we haven’t had any food since this morning back in London!” Lily’s eyebrow arched dangerously, and James knew that she was ready to argue.

 

“All you want is to go out and get drunk at that pub, James, I know you.” She wasn’t wrong, was she? She almost never was. James decided on a different tactic. One with a proven success rate.

 

“We’ll get that wine you like, that red one that’s really sour.” A hint of a smile made its way onto Lily’s face, and James knew he’d got her.

 

“You mean the Merlot?”

 

“Yeah, that one. Come on, it’ll be quick.” He gave her his trademark smirk-smile, the one he knew she always gave in to. He knew it would seal the deal.

 

“... Fine.” Now the smirk was out in full force.

 

“See, I know you too well, Lils.”

 

“You certainly seem to think you do, James.”

* * *

 

It was at least midnight, if not later, but James couldn’t sleep. This in itself wasn’t completely odd, if you didn’t know James, but for those more acquainted with him, this was completely out of the ordinary. James was able to sleep like a rock, pardon the cliche. He was such a sound sleeper that he often slept through his alarms while in London, which, more often than not, was the reason for his perpetual lateness.

 

Tonight, however, James wasn’t able to sleep, due to the figure lying next to him. He hadn’t figured sharing a bed with Lily would be all that awkward until they had walked into the bedroom after coming back from the pub. James had taken one look at the not-too-big bed (singular) and internally cursed. Lily, on the other hand, showed no signs of being affected by the less-than-optimal sleeping arrangement, as she fell into the bed without even changing her clothes. Her eyes had shut before her head hit the pillow, presumably exhausted from the day’s events.

 

Now James lay there beside her uncomfortably, hyper-aware of her every movement. She’d been tossing and turning for a while now, and James couldn’t help but remember that she’d never done that before she’d gone missing. It was while James was thinking about the changes he’d observed in Lily that he heard sniffling coming from her figure. He listened closer, trying to figure out what was going on, and found that it sounded like Lily was crying in her sleep.

 

“No, please…” Crying and talking, then. She mumbled something else that sounded a lot like ‘mfhfhnm’ to James, but he didn’t need to understand exactly what she was saying to understand what it was she was dreaming about. His heart broke for her in that moment, as the reality of what had most likely happened to her hit James like a bullet to the chest.

 

James decided to try to wake her up, to get her out of whatever hell she was reliving through her dream. He tried tapping her on the shoulder a few times, but she didn’t seem to notice. He called out her name thrice, progressively louder, to no effect. Finally, he decided to fuck it all straight to hell and hugged her to his chest, hoping wildly to comfort her subconscience.

 

That seemed to do the trick, as for a second, she stilled in his arms, causing James to let out a sigh of relief. That is, until she jolted awake, pulled out a knife from god-knows-where, and pinned him down to the mattress, holding the newly-acquired weapon to his throat.

 

“Lily! Lily, it’s James! You were- you were having a dream.” Recognition dawned in her eyes, and she slowly removed the knife from his neck, where it had been pressing threateningly.

 

“Oh- oh God, James, oh my god, I’m sorry.” She jumped out of bed, adrenaline obviously running through her.

 

“It’s alright, are, um, you okay though? It sounded like you were having a nightmare.”

 

“No, I’m-  I’m fine. I should go back to sleep. Yeah, we should… we should get some sleep.”

* * *

 

James woke with a start, hearing a thump coming from the other room. On instinct, he reached for 2 things; his gun (on the bedside table), and Lily. He found the gun, but was doubly startled to find that Lily was nowhere to be seen.

He rose from the bed quickly, turning the safety on his gun off, and letting it lead the way through the door. Later, it would strike him as odd that his expectation had been foreign agents that had created the sudden noise, and not the person he was sharing the flat with, but at that moment, when James saw that it was just Lily in the main room, the only emotion he registered was surprise.

 

The thump could reasonably be attributed to the exercise Lily was engaging in, though why she was doing sit-ups at the positively ungodly hour of 5 in the morning was beyond James. He quickly turned the safety on his gun back on and slipped it back into his back pocket, keeping his eyes on Lily as he did so. He automatically noticed that she was much more frail, with less muscle and more bone than she’d been a few months ago. Her cheeks, normally full and rosy, were instead wane and pale. How she’d disguised that until now, James figured, was one of the many miracles of makeup.

 

He then immediately chastised himself for thinking this. Of course she was skinnier than she had been, she’d been locked up in a goddamn torture prison for ages. Of all the insensitive things to think, why’d he go and choose that one?

 

His self-admonishment was put to a stop when Lily saw that he’d awoke.

 

“Good morning.” She sounded out of breath.

 

“You’re up early.”

“Yeah, I, uh, couldn’t sleep. Um, there’s coffee in the kitchen, if you want any. I think I burnt it though, so, uh, yeah.” He decided to try for some humour to diffuse the weird-as-fuck situation.

 

“Lily Evans, coffee-addict extraordinaire, burning coffee? What’s the world come to?” She didn’t crack a smile. _Well then, fuck._

 

James made his way over to the little kitchen, poured out some of the truly terribly burnt coffee without complaint, and sat down at the table by the window. Lily paid him no mind, continuing her exercising.

 

“So, about last night, I know you don’t want to, um, talk to me, but if you’re having nightmares like that, you could talk to someone else, right?” Lily ceased her exercising, turning to look James dead-on, a displeased expression on her face.

 

“That’s my business.” Definitely displeased, but James had never been one to give up without a fight. He decided to try again, taking on a rather emotional tone.

 

“Lily, you need to take that kind of thing seriously, I’m concerned for you as your friend and as your partner. Please, just say you’ll think about it.”

 

“Don’t psychoanalyse me, James. I won’t have it. I’m fine, and I just want to move on.” She looked away, her cool facade cracking for just a moment. After a deep breathe, she continued quietly.

“I just want to move on.”

 

“O-Okay. Okay, sure. Just, uh, just forget I said anything I guess.” James stood up, ready to leave the suddenly absolutely awkward conversation. Lily interrupted his seemingly imminent departure by abruptly changing the topic.

 

“I’m going to try to make contact with Katia today. I think you should be out of the flat when I do, it’ll be easier for her to adjust if it’s one-on-one at first. You should try to catch up with Anton, see what he’s up to.”

 

“Sounds good, I’ll bring my camera so we can document everything for our report.” Lily nodded once, before grabbing her half-full (or rather, half-empty) mug of coffee and striding purposefully into the bedroom.

* * *

 

Anton Makarenko looked just like the pictures McGonagall had shown James before he’d gotten to Paris. Well, he’d gotten a haircut and was starting to grow some stubble, but otherwise, Makarenko was fairly easy for James to spot. James had caught up to him while he was at a diner eating breakfast, and had been trailing him since. Makarenko had been up in his flat, in the outskirts of Paris, for about an hour, during which time James had successfully found two different vantage points with which to peer into the Soviet’s windows. After taking about twelve million photos, James was starting to lose interest in the particulars of Makarenko’s domestic habits when Anton abruptly left the flat, going downstairs.

From James’s vantage point, he could see Makarenko waiting in the alley beside the apartment building anxiously, checking his watch and pacing back and forth. After a few minutes of this, a dark van pulled up, parking on the street. A heavily-built man, in his 40’s, got out of the passenger’s seat and walked into the alley where Makarenko was waiting. James noticed the newcomer’s face was hardened, with a long, jagged scar across his cheek. The two men spoke in hushed tones, and they seemed to be arguing. Makarenko visibly blanched as the older man casually pulled out his gun, a Makarov pistol, which was given to all offical agents of the USSR. He wasn’t shy about his affiliation with the Soviets, then. James took more pictures, angling his camera toward the faces of the men who were still in quiet discussion. Makarenko looked like he’d agreed to whatever the other man had been asking, and was now nodding along with the instructions he was receiving. After a while, the man seemed satisfied with Makarenko, and, after delivering him a stern look, got back in his car, which sped away at a completely unreasonable pace. Anton wasted no time in leaving the alley and returning to his flat, where he got busy drinking. James took that as his cue to end his surveillance for a while.

* * *

 

“Oh, I absolutely love that film! Wasn’t Debra Winger just so lovely?” An unfamiliar voice chatted away from the other side of the door to James’s flat. As he opened the door, he called out down the hall.

 

“Hello?” Lily came into view, sitting on the settee next to a a sweet-looking, plump old woman in her late 70’s who James assumed was Katia Makarenko. Lily stood up, giving James a glowing smile.

 

“Oh, James! Come here, I want you to meet our new neighbor. Katia, this is my fiance, James. James, this is Katia Makarenko, she lives in the flat down the hall.” Katia stood up slowly, also smiling widely at James. He shook her feeble hand and smiled back.

 

“Hi, it’s a pleasure to meet you, Katia.”

 

“It’s so nice to meet you too. I have to say, it’s just lovely to hear british accents again! I’ve been living in Paris for two years, but I miss London every day.” James knew to let Lily do the talking at this point, her ability to chat up old women was unparalleled.

 

“When you moved to Paris, did you know anyone?”

 

“No, I was completely lonely for a while. You two are lucky you have eachother, moving to a new city can be so difficult.” James had no comment on that.

 

“I just wish we had some relatives here in Paris, it would make the transition so much easier.”

 

“You know, my great nephew just moved to Paris, and I truly hope that having me here will make his time in Paris smoother. Anyway, why did you move to Paris?” Katia wasn’t making it easy to direct the conversation where Lily evidently wanted it to go, but Lily wasn’t one to give up quickly.

 

“Well, James is a photographer, so he’s found a lot of work in Paris, and I’m an art buyer for the Serpentine Galleries in London. I was just placed here to do some work in collaboration with the Centre Pompidou.”

 

“You’re an art buyer? My goodness, you should meet Anton! He’s working as an art dealer, he would be so interested to meet you!” Lily was almost there, she’d have to go in for the kill now.

 

“Oh, well, I’d love to meet him, it’s so great to meet people in an unfamiliar city! I just don’t know when we’d be able to meet, our schedules are kind of up in the air right now.”

 

“How about you come over for dinner tomorrow night? Anton has been coming every Friday for dinner, and I’m sure he’d like to meet some people around his age.”

 

“That sounds lovely, thank you so much for the invitation. We’d love to come over.”

 

“Anton will be delighted to meet some people who are as friendly as you both are, I’m afraid he hasn’t been taking to Paris very well. Truthfully, he keeps mentioning how much he misses life back home.” James and Lily shared a look,  both of them finding it rather unfortunate that a kind lady like Katia would get caught up in what her great-nephew was doing. It would be difficult to turn someone who had given their trust to the operatives so easily, but it was necessary to the cause.

* * *

 

“That went well, right?” Lily turned to James after seeing Katia out of the flat. While she was no longer smiling her convincingly-real looking smile, she still had an air of cheerfulness to her.

 

“I’d say so, yeah.” Lily had always been good at that part. Getting people to like her, to do things for her. She’d never enjoyed it though, it felt too manipulative for her.

 

“Well, I’d say tomorrow night is the best time to get everything done. Quick and clean, like McGonagall wants, no?”

 

“If we’re striking tomorrow night, we should use tonight and tomorrow to get all of the intel we need.” Lily nodded absently at that, agreeing.

 

“Well, did you get anything from tailing him today?”

 

“Maybe. He was mostly boring, you know, but he met with this big guy around 8:30 this morning, and it all looked a bit suspicious. I mean, this guy wasn’t any Frenchman, he had a Soviet gun and wasn’t afraid to show it off.”

 

“Did you get any pictures? What did he look like?”

 

“Yeah, I got a ton of pictures, but I’ve got to get them developed. Um, I guess he was tall, dark hair, and this nasty scar down his right cheek, it looked really bad.” Lily’s eyebrows dipped, that comment had gotten her attention and made her go pale. She looked deadly serious and extremely worried, her slight cheerfulness at having made successful contact with Katia all but gone.

 

“A scar? James, did he have part of his right ear missing?” James thought back to his time on that rooftop, and remembered with accuracy that the man’s entire earlobe was gone, the rest of his ear mangled and disfigured. He nodded slowly, concerned.

 

“Yes, he definitely did. Why, how do you know him?” Lily’s eyes were out of focus, and it looked like she was thinking at about a billion words-per-second.

 

“Oh my god.” Without any explanation, Lily sprang into action, grabbing a piece of paper from her bag and writing furiously on it.

 

“Lily, what’s going on? Do you know this guy? Who is he?” He peered over her shoulder to see that she was writing a note to Sirius, asking for heavy-duty backup, and suggesting a meeting. James was seriously concerned; whoever this guy was, it wasn’t good.

 

“Lily, seriously, you need to tell me.” She finally glanced up from her note, and noticing the distress apparent on his face, started explaining to James what she knew.

“James, that man is Alexei Petrov. The Petrov who’s basically the KGB’s chief covert officer. The fact that he’s in Paris… this isn’t good.”

 

“What the hell? What’s Petrov doing in Paris? Why’s he talking to Makarenko? How do you know that it’s him?”

 

“I-I met him. Twice, really. When I was in that… when I was still in Russia. He knew who I was, or at least, a bit about who I was, and he interrogated me. So, I’m fairly acquainted with him.” She didn’t look happy to have revealed that, so James decided not to push the subject.

 

“Okay, well, um, fuck. What’s he doing talking to someone like Makarenko? Why would he waste his time on someone like him?”

 

“Petrov wouldn’t talk to someone that low-level. That means that Makarenko isn’t helping the KGB… he is the KGB.”


End file.
